That is a lens i am waiting on Lowell, not all the m's are great, but generally they represent great value

like the cat shot it really shows off the cat and the lens

Thanks

he is prety patient, in fact I would die to have a cat's life, especially a show breed.

I am quite pleased with the lens, and it does not seem to suffer from my general impression of the mechanics of the M50's and the M100 that I have tried. I took a K105 over the M100 mostly because of the difference in feel. Having said that, the K105 is an interesting beast, quite soft wide open, which is unusual for many other pentax lenses. Maybe I should have taken the M100.....

But I digress, as I said the lens fills out my K mount line pretty well when you also add in the Samyang 14 i picked up.

Re the difference between the K and M it is (or was previously) not optics but mechanics. The other Ms I tried just seemed to be lacking the same silky smooth feel. They all seemed a little rough by comparison, but maybe when you consider my K lenses 50/1.4, 135/2.5, 300/4 I was unfairly comparing some really great lenses and expecting a "kit lens" to be the same

Bear in mind that most of these old lenses will require a little time for the focusing mechanisms to smooth out after years of neglect in a drawer or attic somewhere. The majority of mine are much smoother than they were when I got them, they´re almost always a little on the tight side & require more force than they should.

Bear in mind that most of these old lenses will require a little time for the focusing mechanisms to smooth out after years of neglect in a drawer or attic somewhere. The majority of mine are much smoother than they were when I got them, they´re almost always a little on the tight side & require more force than they should.

True. I have a Cosina 28 2.8 which focused dreadfully, but it had been in my Dad's cabinet for ten years. It's fine now.

Bear in mind that most of these old lenses will require a little time for the focusing mechanisms to smooth out after years of neglect in a drawer or attic somewhere. The majority of mine are much smoother than they were when I got them, they´re almost always a little on the tight side & require more force than they should.

while this may be true, and while I know one or two samples should not be used to make a general statement it still remains curious that the M lenses suffer when the K's , SMC tak's , super tak's , and takumars I own do not. I would have expected the older lenses not the newer to be problematic

The main thing to get used with metering on M and other manual K-mount lenses is that matrix/multi-segment/pattern metering is not available. So it defaults to center-weighted. This does indeed often yield brighter exposures, as there is no way to identify individual hotspots to avoid clipping. I ended up switching to center-weighted metering and M mode permanently - even with my DA lenses - so it wouldn't be such a mental adjustment every time I changed lenses. Now you couldn't pay me to go back.

The main thing to get used with metering on M and other manual K-mount lenses is that matrix/multi-segment/pattern metering is not available. So it defaults to center-weighted. This does indeed often yield brighter exposures, as there is no way to identify individual hotspots to avoid clipping. I ended up switching to center-weighted metering and M mode permanently - even with my DA lenses - so it wouldn't be such a mental adjustment every time I changed lenses. Now you couldn't pay me to go back.

I agree, this is the way to do it. My k-7 is welded to center weight metering.